All true. But corporate India is no longer willing to pay for opportunity costs.

Tata Steel went overseas because access to the richest iron ore at home is so embroiled in unresolved tribal and land rights and Naxalism that it will take years before the company ramps up its operations and becomes global by growing from a home base. Ditto with Financial Technologies, which is building exchanges in Dubai and Singapore because the commodities laws here won’t accommodate exchanges that will help equalize our society. Anil Ambani is financing Spielberg because Bollywood, sexy as it is, is like filmi kindergarten compared with the professionalism and organisation of Hollywood.

None of this overseas expansion is permanent, says Rajiv Chandrashekhar. As soon as the sweet nectar from determined reform and deregulation begins to flow again, he predicts, the “centre of gravity will swing right back to India.”

Peut-etre. Maybe. But in the meanwhile, it’s possible that India’s luminous icon, the Nano, will be Made-Outside-India.

The writer is bureau chief, Businessweek. Views expressed are personal